sorry you caught me at a bad time, just practicing my french.
well I guess you could stay and we could chat a bit....
Last night I had dinner with a small group of people working on getting kids at Caroline outside and into nature. I know, amazing concept. It was a pleasure to feast on quiche and discus with former Caroline teacher (and host)- Janie Clark, and current graduate student in landscape architecture,Tim Lynch, as well as John Weissenger, author of many animal books, about incorporating a school garden into their master plan for a wilderness area. I must say it's exciting to be around so many amazing and supportive people. I took some notes, which I will post up later. In short, we talked about possible 3 possible areas for the garden, compost options, soil testing, community involvement, construction, handicap access, and curriculum ideas. There is a surprisingly copious amount of school garden sites, with everything from building raised beds to teaching kindergardeners about worms. I know i most likely wont be around to see this idea completely through, but as Mrs. Clark said, we are building a house and our small group is the architect. The biggest dragon we must slay is creating a master plan to submit to the state. Unfortunately for us you cant take public school grounds and put what ever you want on it.
A elementary school garden, available to the public, filled with radishes, kale, carrots, and everything in between, might not seem like much, but in my mind it would be fantastic- on par with taking a ski trip. As consumers, food is our number one way we vote with our dollars, and we cast our ballot every day. Getting kids, who (if they were anything like me) bug the brain cells out of their parents, involved in this outmost important local, sustainable, food movement. Its been shown that kids eating habits are influenced at a very young age, and if it begins young enough a kid raised on kale chips and tomatoes will prefer eating said gross food for the rest of his/her life. You've got to start young!
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